Blessing in the Bleak
by LoveUnderLockAndKey
Summary: What I imagined happened after we left our heroes in the hall  Series 2 finale . A bit of character exploration for dear Mrs. Hughes.


_Bit of character exploration for lovely Mrs. Hughes. What happened after Mr. Bates was arrested for his wife's murder?_

_This is my first attempt at a fic, born from my love for everyone at Downton and a similar professional, yet slightly mother/daughter-like, relationship from my past.  
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Blessing in the Bleak

A ghostly cold descended, cutting straight down to the bone. My eyes began to dry out as blinking was a reflex that my body wouldn't dare muster. Surely the air had been sucked out of the room. I watched the two men unmercifully haul him down the corridor and out of our world. My chest tightened and the room began to swirl as if it were all a terrible nightmare. I would think it were all in my head if I didn't feel the slightest brush on the back of my hand. I slowly turned to look at Charles, but his attentions were elsewhere.

Anna.

There she stood, lip quivering but stoic as I've ever seen her. It was then that it all came crashing back. Her words began to repeat over and over in my head. "And I love you. For richer or for poorer, for better, for worse" and she kissed him. Sure and strong, in front of God and every servant in this hall.

Dear Lord.

It took a beat for me to break from the spell and rush to her side. "Come with me, dear," I demanded more than offered as I firmly took her arm and steered her to my sitting room. Her weight against me was palpable. She could barely stand; I wouldn't allow the others the chance to register what I had come to realize in those brief moments with her still in plain sight. What had she once said about Gwen? "She wants to keep it private, not secret. There's a difference."

Quite right.

Charles was two steps behind me every step of the way. As I sat Anna on the modest settee, I turned to him and gave a knowing look. I didn't have to say anything further. He left with a strong and steady, yet somehow quite defeated, "I'm sorry."

I closed the door, turned the key, and went to her, the sweet yet strong girl who had become the closest thing I had to a daughter. True, she was under my jurisdiction, an employee by all definitions of the word, but in all my years of service, or on this Earth for that matter, I had never known a more amiable, noble, kind-hearted woman than one Miss Anna Smith.

Bates. Anna Smith Bates. It had to be true, there were no two ways about it.

As I sat in a chair that I had pulled up alongside, I slowly reached for her left hand. I took it in both of my own as I delicately, and ever so slowly, removed the black glove that had covered it. I daren't rush for fear of breaking the fragile spirit she was trying so desperately to hold on to. I wouldn't be the one to shatter the glass.

There it was. A slight, gold band.

"Oh my dear girl," I began, my voice hitching a bit as I all but managed the words. As much as I loved Anna, I had also come to think very highly of Mr. John Bates. The way he had tried to resign in order to protect Thomas, a man who had done nothing but try to get rid of him since the moment he arrived, the way he had admitted to his past, only telling half the story in a way that unfalteringly painted him in the wrong, the countenance he showed when he attempted to fix his own gait. Daisy was right. He had become a rather romantic figure, especially to my dear Anna.

Anna had always been a pleasant girl, joking about with Gwen and the others and always standing up for the good, but something changed within her when John Bates arrived at Downton. I could tell something was brewing between those two from his very first week in service. It was almost as if Anna had finally found her other half, her partner in crime. For as much as Thomas and O'Brien were joined at the hip, scheming and plotting in quiet corners, Anna had begun to join Mr. Bates in a similar fashion, though their meetings were usually marked with laughter and bright eyes. As opposite from the troublesome duo as could be.

Oh and the night before he was to first leave us! The concern in her eyes, her change in demeanor. It was undeniable, even before she insisted on taking him that tray.

Bless them, they tried their best to keep their budding romance quiet, but you don't get to be my age without learning a thing or two about chemistry. I often wonder if I realized how they felt about each other before either of them ever truly did. I blame my keen maternal instinct. Though I had never been blessed to have children of my own, I could never seem to help fretting over and fixing my charges, though at enough of a distance as not to be noticed as such.

By anyone but Charles, that is. Charles Carson always did have a finely tuned sense of my overprotective ways but never denied me the privilege. Always indulging this old maid…

Anna had yet to break, until I enveloped that small hand with the freshly polished band in both of my own. "Oh Mrs. Hughes… I… I…" My mind fumbled over what to say to ease her unquiet mind, only allowing the simplest of answers. "Quiet now, love. Close your eyes and breathe." I gave that perfect hand the slightest squeeze before moving to sit alongside her, wrapping both arms around my girl who had been strong too long now, far longer than I could have ever been.

When that witch of a woman, Vera Bates, first arrived at Downton, one look at that sickeningly sweet, painted on smile told me that she would bring nothing but trouble down upon this house. Mr. Bates had just arrived back from London; he and Anna had set to making plans. Good plans. Joyful plans.

Well-deserved plans.

Though, if there were one thing about those two I would ever have changed, if I had dared give myself away, it would have been to encourage them to find another place to conduct their private business. Sound in the courtyard had a way of carrying back to the house, more specifically, to the stock pantry. Thank the angels only I ever seemed to be in there when they would start up. I would say that I hoped that she was making the right decision, but one look at the two of them together, and there was no doubt. Unorthodox, yes, but who was I to deny love, especially one as pure and true.

I had experienced that once. I often wonder, even to this day, what might have been. I couldn't live with myself if I were to bring those same regrets down upon Anna.

I would simply listen. I shook my head and sent up a prayer each time I heard their painfully honest, yet respectfully restrained, admissions. Well, that, and made sure the blasted door was locked behind me. I couldn't risk anyone else overhearing them, the least of which Thomas or O'Brien. No doubt they would find something to bring ruin upon Anna & Mr. Bates' happiness.

That horrid night he left her out there, grasping herself so tightly as to silence her sobs, I thought I might kill him in cold blood, myself. I wanted nothing more than to pull him aside and give him what for, but only after I drew her into my sitting room to relieve her of the bitter night that was no doubt freezing her falling tears. I regret saying that I did neither. I left her, cold and alone, because I thought she would best be served keeping her dignity in the situation.

I cannot remember a time when I was more disappointed in myself.

She is straining again, like she did that night out alone in the cold, fighting her own body's impulse to release what has built up for years. Vera did not go quietly. She came back, again and again, like the worst kind of tarnished penny. Mr. Bates gave her everything, giving up any semblance of a prosperous future, just to live in one with Anna. Even so, it was not enough. That woman could not bear to see him happy with another. Though shocked that the vernacular came out of his mouth, I rightly cheered him on when he had called her a "bitch."

Never was there a more accurate definition of the curse.

When she had come up murdered, I was less than shocked. A woman like that could not have had very many friends in this world. I would not have blamed Mr. Bates for one second if he had indeed killed her, but there was absolutely no way in Heaven's name that he would have. It's almost as if his past has carved into him a steadfast conviction, an inability to speak anything other than truth. Anna saw that quickly as anyone; most of us were quick to follow.

There was no way in hell that he killed that woman.

"Go on now. You've fought long enough." I coax with sensibly quiet words and soft strokes to her quivering back. All at once, she becomes a small girl awoken from a nightmare, terrorized by demons in the night. She turns just enough to bury her face in my neck and slackens to a degree that shoots straight into my soul. The sobs remain quiet, as only my dignified Anna would allow, but the tears are right soaking.

"I'm not going anywhere," I whisper into her hair as I hold on as fast as these old arms will allow.

I meant it. For now and for always, for it was then that I realized I was wrong when I said that God hadn't blessed me with children. He had given me Anna, and I would be damned if I would ever leave her to face the bleak alone again.


End file.
